Superdelegates get behind Obama

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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The Democratic establishment is steadily moving toward ensuring Sen. Barack Obama's nomination for president even as more of the party's voters view him as a damaged candidate.

Mr. Obama is fewer than 300 delegates from the nomination, and inches closer with each day and each superdelegate endorsement, but he is losing ground in national polls and in the final contest states in the wake of negative campaigning, big-state losses and several dust-ups involving his former pastor.

Poll after poll shows that the Democratic front-runner's image has been sullied and that many Democrats who back his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, say they won't back Mr. Obama if he is the party choice.

But party leaders such as former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew are flocking to Mr. Obama's side, urging others to do the same and close the delegate gap so Democrats can unify in time for the fall.

"I have been inspired," Mr. Andrew said in a note yesterday to the superdelegates — elected officials and party activists whose endorsements ultimately will decide the nominee.

Mr. Andrew, who was named to the DNC post in 1999 under President Clinton, said Mr. Obama's handling of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s anti-American sermons helped seal the deal to get him to switch sides from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama. He called on voters in his home state of Indiana and on superdelegates to "heal the rift in our party and unite behind" Mr. Obama.

"We risk letting this moment slip through our fingers. We risk ceding the field to the Republicans and allowing the morally bankrupt Bush agenda to continue unabated if we do not unite behind a single candidate," he said.

"Should this race continue after Indiana and North Carolina, it will inevitably become more negative," he said, also blasting Mrs. Clinton and her husband for using "old" campaign tactics.

Mrs. Clinton — trailing the Illinois senator in delegates but buoyed by a Pennsylvania win last week — is now beating presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in more polls and is gaining on Mr. Obama in the next contests.

Mr. Obama's once-solid edge in North Carolina has dropped to single digits, and the two candidates are crisscrossing Indiana to fight for every vote in what's expected to be a close contest. Both states vote Tuesday.